


A Couple of Vodka and Tonics and I'll Tell you your Story (because it's mine)

by sammyspreadyourwings



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band), Rocketman (2019)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Male Friendship, Music, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overdosing, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 04:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19124161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyspreadyourwings/pseuds/sammyspreadyourwings
Summary: John and Bernie both love their singers and find companionship in the similarities of their careers.





	A Couple of Vodka and Tonics and I'll Tell you your Story (because it's mine)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation in the Dork Lovers Server. Please enjoy. I swear I meant to make this not... sad? Please enjoy!  
> *feel free if you need to ask me to tag something.  
> **read into any ships that you'd like, they're all sort of vague anyway

> **1**

John and Bernie meet before they officially have met. Their singers cross orbits frequently, but it’s always in the brief ways of managers. When they officially meet it's at a party that neither one were _invited_ too, but as they were shadows of Freddie and Elton respectively, they weren’t barred entry. Even then, John’s not entirely sure he’s going to remember this meeting come morning.

Er. Evening, he’s pretty sure that’s the sun now. He’d be more uncomfortable with his own intake if he hadn’t seen Brian and Roger’s cuddle pile somewhere near four a.m and if Freddie still hadn’t been going strong along with his newly acquired friend ( _is that the one Roger was whining about being Freddie’s new soulmate?)_. The drinks have gone from some American named sex-during-a-sunset (maybe?) fruity monstrosity to vodka poured in the morning orange juice. Or would it be orange juice poured in the morning vodka?

He wrinkles his nose. Then blinks when a glass is handed to him, he almost refuses it, but notes there’s no boozy smell. John looks up to see the kind stranger, and he narrows his eyes because he’s seen this man before. The stranger’s eyes have tracked off to where Freddie and New Friend are singing a horribly out of tune version of Let It Be, and John is glad none of the Beatles are around to hear _that._

Ah. This must be the New Stranger’s shadow.

Elton John. That was the name, a strangely posh name that doesn’t match the accent. Not that John can really judge. Which means that this must be Bernie-something-with-a-T.

“Thanks,” he croaks.

At least he’s not the singer. Roger is going to bitch about his voice before the show tonight. Do they have a show tonight?

“No problem,” Bernie says, “you’re John Deacon, Queen’s bassist.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself the royal bassist, but I am the bassist of Queen.”

Bernie laughs, “I like your stuff. Re- Elton is a big fan of it, a bigger fan of Freddie.”

That’s how it usually goes, John thinks bitterly, “Fred’s mentioned yours every now and again.”

That seems to make the man preen. The smile moves from polite to genuine. John knows that look all too well; he’s worn it many times when Fred’s got the crowd in his hands. Pure love for the artist and not the art. Elton’s a solo act, and they’re rarely close enough to their backup band to have a shadow.

Which means… oh, so this is the mysterious writer. He’s about to ask the polite career questions, the ones his half-fermented brain can remember when Bernie stumbles to the side due to the gaudy gold bathrobe leaning against his side.

“Bernie! There you are!”

“Here I am,” Bernie smiles apologetically.

John tips with the weight against his side, and finds that Freddie has become his usual limpet self. He raises his eyes skyward because he’s really in no shape to get Freddie to bed, considering he has no idea whose house they’ve found themselves in. Well. He’ll just drop him on the Roger-Brian cuddle pile and let that sort itself out.

“Right,” Bernie says, _oops, he’d been talking,_ “better get going. Pleasure.”

“Pleasure,” John raises the forgotten water in a mock cheer.

“Deaky! You have to meet Elton, I’ll have to think of a name for him.”

He smiles and starts to drag Freddie to where he thinks he last saw the other two.

> **2**

The next time they meet it’s in the middle of the night, rather than the end of it. He neatly dodges around Brian who’s on the outs again with his wife and thus the heavy drinker of the night, Roger lends a sympathetic ear while his eyes drift elsewhere. John spares a moment to wonder where they’re going to end up. Hopefully not in the pool again.

He turns the corner and feels his shirt get wet before he realizes that he’s run into someone. John is about to apologize when the other starts first.

“Oh. Bernie.”

The man, blinks, “John Deacon! How’re you?”

Why does everyone have to say his full name? He supposes its better than Deaky catching on.

“Wet.”

Bernie stares before looking down at his shirt, “oh. My bad.”

“Bound to happen,” John waves it off, because really if this is the worse thing that happens to his shirt tonight, he’ll count it as a win.

“Sure enough, say, you haven’t seen Elton have you?”

John shakes his head, “no, but Freddie is in the lounge.”

“I’ll check there, thanks.”

Bernie begins to walk away, before apparently realizing that his drinks are on John’s shirt. John smiles bemusedly and then spots Roger jumping around (in the coordinately uncoordinated way of drunk-and-also-high people) while Brian mopes. _That’s_ going to be a disaster, so he gestures back towards the bar.

“Shall we?”

John gets whatever it is that Bernie is ordering and is pleased with the burn of scotch. Why people drink it to get smashed, he’ll never know but it’s a nice break from the shots he was doing. Maybe he should slow down? He glances at a table covered in white powder and decides that he’s not doing too bad.

“You’re on tour, again?” John yells over the crowd.

“I don’t think we’ve stopped, honestly.”

“Long enough to record,” John snorts.

“If that.”

They wander into the lounge. Freddie is strutting on top of the piano. The glossy black surface dusted with white and smudged with footprints. Elton is as John guessed, in the lounge as well. A surprisingly coherent and well-played piano echoes between Freddie’s pitch-perfect vibratos. He might be able to find his way around his bass drunk off his ass, but he could never pull off what Freddie does.

Bernie relaxes somewhat. A soft smile fills his face before it twists into something a little more telling. John is sure his own face mirrors it, and he doesn’t want to think about _that._ They’re at a party, they’re Rockstars.

At this moment they’re immune from the consequences. He can worry about it later. Bernie sneaks the drink to Elton once the song reaches its natural end, and Freddie struts over and steals the rest of his scotch. John is dragged away towards some up-and-comer bass player “that he simply must meet. He’s brilliant. Not as brilliant as you, of course…” and John doesn’t spare Bernie a second thought.

> **3**

They meet sober at an awards show. He hates these things because they’re always scrutinized. Sure there’s those that sneak cocaine in the corner, but for the most part, everyone is on their best behavior.  Brian is sober, Roger is less so, but they fought on the way over so currently they aren’t talking.

Which means John gets to read another story in the morning speculating that Queen is on its way to a breakup. As if. One of them is going to have to die before Queen can realistically be considered to die. John doesn’t like that train of thought, and a well-placed drink brings him from it.

If he hadn’t heard about the string of girls Bernie tends to have at Elton’s house parties (he’s sure he’ll get to see it next month when they’re back in LA for a… interview? Concert? They aren’t on tour yet but they have to go to L.A.), he’d almost think that he was being hit on.

“Cheers,” John tilts the class towards him.

“Cheers,” Bernie raises his own.

“Congratulations, by the way, heard you had another good hit?”

“And congratulations on the album. We’ll hear it in, what, two months?”  
“Something like that. If Freddie doesn’t decide his voice sounds like shit on one of the tracks.”

Bernie nods, “I rarely hear the recording process these days.”

“I’m in the band,” John shrugs.

John looks up at Freddie’s excited shrieking quickly joined by Elton’s. They start talking a mile a minute, and John isn’t exactly sure what Elton’s glasses are meant to be, but they aren’t flattering on Freddie.

Maybe he should buy Roger a pair like that so he stops complaining that he can’t see the sheet music.

“I can’t believe I miss the ascots,” Bernie laughs.

There’s something hidden under those words. John isn’t sure what, but he does know he’s not meant to pry.

“Freddie is thinking about changing his hair.”

He knows Bernie knows what he means. They have this moment, a mostly sober Freddie and Elton in a similar state. John knows how the after-after party will be, so he savors the champagne to whet his appetite for something harder.

“John,” Brian walks over, “have you seen – oh hello. Brian May.”

They’ve been introduced before, but like John, he barely remembers. Brian ever polite will reintroduce himself a hundred times, so he doesn’t look rude.

“Bernie Taupin.”

They shake hands.

“You’re Elton’s…”

“Songwriter or friend if you must get personal.”

John wonders how many times Bernie has heard that insinuation. Must be more times than any of Queen has been accused of sleeping together, he has a stable wife and enough kids to keep the rumors away from him. Brian being caught in (another) cheating scandal and Roger’s general playboy life tends to keep them safe.

There’s really nothing like that for Bernie, so far as he can tell.

“Right,” Brian nods politely but strained.

“What’d Roger do now?” John sighs because Brian only sounds like that when Roger is being _mean._

Children, both of them.

“Nothing. Haven’t seen him. Wondering if you had?”

“No, but maybe you should go save Freddie,” John gestures with his head.

Both Elton and Freddie are surrounded by women who look more than a little eager to get a piece of living legends. John nearly snorts at the ridiculousness of it. They’ve all got the same idea in their head.

“I’ll help,” Bernie says.

They don’t meet up at the afterparty.

> **4**

The next time they meet up, they’re decidedly more familiar with each other. Elton and Freddie must’ve schemed (surprisingly without burning anything down, small miracles) to get them to bond, and they ended up with each other’s numbers. John thinks it’s a little too much, but his too much has gotten skewed these last few years.

Bernie had called him to one of his English townhouses. John approaches with apprehension befitting 19-year-old John Deacon rather than 30-something John Deacon. They’ve all heard the news reports, and the rumors. For all the Devil May Care attitudes in the Rock ‘n Roll world, they’re certainly proficient in gossiping.

He still doesn’t know why it’s him, but John feels like he can’t ignore this call. It might be because Queen is on the outs with each other, more serious than usual. Maybe he’s lonely, with Ronnie and the kids visiting the countryside.

When he knocks on the door, Bernie answers unusually grave-faced. John doesn’t actually recall ever seeing the man lose his smile beyond a quick downturn of his lips.

“Sorry,” Bernie says and stands to the side, “but I think you’re the only one who gets it.”

John takes off his coat, “I heard.”

Bernie nods, “I was there. I spoke with him, maybe a half-an-hour before.”

He winces because he can’t imagine what that must’ve felt like. John’s never seen an OD, he doesn’t think Freddie (although there are a lot more drugs and empty bottles) or Roger have ever tried to push their limits beyond what’s fun. It could be similar to when Brian was ill, but that hadn’t been a direct result of his actions or addictions.

Bernie leads him through the house, strangely reminiscent of American cowboys. Roger’s _yeehaw_ comes screeching to mind. How had that tour been so long ago? They sit at the dining room table while the kettle boils.

“How do you talk to Freddie about it?”

He hasn’t.

“He can usually stop himself,” John says instead.

Bernie nods, “Elton used to. Do you think we need to get away from it?”

_We._ John finds that word strangely funny. Elton is a solo act, he can have any songwriter in the world working for him. Bernie and Elton aren’t anything like Queen. One of them can’t just bugger off to the countryside. Bernie can and Elton will still have songs. Elton could leave, and he supposes in loyalty Bernie would too.

“Rehab?”

“He won’t go, but maybe somewhere else. No lights, no shows, no anyone else.”

“It might help,” John says, “but he has to go. Can’t force him.”

Bernie stares at the whistling kettle, as though he had forgotten to put it on. John stands and takes it off but doesn’t pour either of them a cup. He doesn’t think he could stomach one and Bernie doesn’t look like he’d even realize that there was something in front of him.

“What would you do, if it were Freddie?”

John taps a beat on the table (is it Brian’s new song?) and bites his lips, “exactly what you’re doing.”

Which is a fancy way of saying there’s nothing he can do at all.

Bernie seems to understand that. They don’t talk much after that.

> **5**

The eighties seemed like a decade bent on killing as many musicians as she could. Between the lack of information about _it_ and too many drugs, it’s not a surprise. John figures they keep their heads down and make music and they’ll get out of it mostly unscathed.

A nice thought, but it doesn’t work like that.

Freddie is more distant, his solo career and nightly activities taking most of the focus away from Queen. Brian seems to think the building they’re in is cursed (or at least contributing to everything bad happening) and Roger spends more time conceding to things he normally wouldn’t so they can avoid the use of a drum machine.

They’re the biggest (one of), and it's harder to avoid glasses always being filled. John knows he’s in a bad spot because even Brian asks him if he’s had enough. Then again that might be the whole hepatitis scare Brian had some months ago pushing him to another health binge (it was something else, but fuck all if John remembered what it was).

He runs into Bernie at a coffee shop of all places. His hair is longer and grayer, and he looks as tired as he did as the last time, they ran into each other. It might’ve been at a party; John goes with it because it is as safe a guess as any.

“John Deacon, how’s it been?”

John offers a tired smile, “recording, writing, long hours in the studio. You know how it goes.”

Bernie nods, “I’d forgotten, but I’ve been working more with Elton there. He’s got this thing about riffs now and words. Not that he’s explained it well to me, or at all. I don’t get how he thinks about music.”

Freddie is like that too. John can keep up most of the time, and when he doesn’t Brian and Roger can translate. Bernie is a songwriter and from what John knows, not a player of instruments. He wonders how that works, with Elton being as fantastic piano player as he is.

“Suppose it’s nice for him to have you there,” John says.

Bernie nods, “a change of pace and Reid is away more often than not.”

John winces.

“You’re recording in Germany?”

“Yeah, we tend to move around. Helps the creative process, the label tells us to.”

“How’s Freddie?”

A loaded question, “he’s career focused.”

John half expects one of the tabloids to fly by and show one of the many Freddie Mercury caught partying photos. Which he’s not sure why that’s a headline, because that’s all they did, but now there’s the whole “homosexual lifestyle” angle the press gets to work. Even while John takes the headlines as warnings of what could happen if Freddie doesn’t stop, Freddie keeps going.

“And Elton? Besides the quirks?” John asks.

“Oh, he’s good. Different energy about him, so the songs are different.”

Bernie checks his watch, “oh, I have to get going. Say hi to Freddie for Elton for me?”

“Course.”

John leaves his coffee, cold and untouched on the table.

> **6**

The last time Bernie and he meet, John is sure it’s the last time, they don’t say anything. He doesn’t have to because the press is practically hitting the issue on the nose and Queen’s vow of a last tour confirms it.

Doesn’t stop the reporters from calling to get a quote. Ronnie patiently accepted it when he threw the phone across the room to get it to stop ringing. It made Roger show up to the door, worried because the line was off, but the silence is worth it.

Bernie showing up at his door is a little more than worrisome because he’s sure that only the people that _needed_ to know where he lived did. More than likely it’s Brian’s way of helping if he must blame someone. Although, someone should probably check on Brian, because he’s not sure Roger has.

They’re all alive because they see each other during visits, but those times are when they’re the most put together. For Freddie’s sake.

Bernie tugs him into a hug. They go further in the house. Ronnie is shopping, the kids are out, at school or otherwise. John puts the kettle on and they sit at the dining room table.

As he said, they don’t talk. It doesn’t need to be said. Elton’s in rehab, and they both know how it’s going to end for Freddie. John thinks back to those early years when he first saw Bernie’s awestruck face at how Elton lives his life and performs their songs. How similar he knew their expressions would be.

Similar careers too, but that doesn’t need to be said, because at the end of the day they’re still the shadows following their singers around. The only difference is the destination.

Bernie leaves after an hour of companionable sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he takes the first step.

“I am too,” John replies.

Five minutes after that John finds the liquor bottle that Ronnie hid in her knitting basket.

> **+1**

The last time they see each other, John’s barely holding it together in wings moments before he has to go back out _there._ Bernie is leaning against a crate. His eyes are on Elton, but he spares John a nod and a watery gaze.

John strums his bass with shaky fingers and doesn’t reach for the drink he has under the bar. Roger squeezes his shoulder, blue eyes are bright. Brian’s probably in the worst shape because he’s holding it together so well.

_The show must go on,_ and all that.

**Author's Note:**

> It's Official Sad Hours(tm) + I watched Rocketman again, so I guess that's why this ended up the way that it did. As always leave your comments below, or come talk to me on tumblr.  
> (Two stories in one day? Fantastic)


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